He woke quickly enough when the Englishman’s hand was clapped over his mouth and held there until his torpid wits were sufficiently clear that he should understand the stern words muttered in his ear.
“Pardon, monsieur,” he said shamefacedly. “I thought there was no harm in sitting down. I listened to the guns, and began counting them. I counted one hundred and ninety-nine shots, I think, and then——”
“And then you risked six lives, Léontine’s among them!”
“Monsieur, I have no excuse.”
“Yet you have been a soldier, I suppose? And you gabble of serving your country?”
“It will not happen again, monsieur.”
Dalroy pretended an anger he did not really feel. He wanted this stolid Walloon to remain awake now, at any rate, so turned away with an ejaculation of contempt.
Maertz rose. He endured an eloquent silence for nearly a minute. Then he murmured, “Monsieur, I shall not offend a second time. Counting guns is worse than watching sheep jumping a fence.”
The moon had risen, revealing a cleared space in front of the hut. A dozen yards away a thin fringe of brushwood and small trees marked the edge of the quarry, while the woodcutter’s path was discernible on the left. A slight breeze had called into being the myriad tongues of the wood, and Dalroy realised that the unceasing cannonade, joined to the rustling of the leaves, would drown any sound of an approaching enemy until it was too late to retreat. He knew that Von Halwig, not to mention the military authorities at Visé, would spare no effort to hunt out and destroy the man who had dared to flout the might of Germany, so he was far from satisfied with the apparent safety of even this secluded refuge.
“Have you a piece of string in your pockets?” he demanded gruffly.